IVasscus munches a banana while he waits for Stalin to get his act together.

SIR IVASSCUS: (Nom nom nom)SIR IVASSCUS: Are we ready to get moving yet? I feel like we've been waiting here for four days, even though it's somehow still the middle of the night and no actual time has passed.

SIR STALIN: Da. Vibbly-vobbly timey wimey etcetera. We are ready.

SIR IVASSCUS: Finally!

SIR STALIN: wtf!

IVasscus immediately jumps up and climbs on top of the carriage, using Stalin as a ladder.

1d10 EXPLOSIVE GET

SIR STALIN: No time for tomfoolery vith boats! Trotsky! Full gallop!

Stalin uses a Feat of Strength to push the carriage as far as he can and hurl it forward while his horse Trotsky pulls. This allows Trotsky to run at full speed and even Sprint.

Trotsky gets a crazy Bonus Die on the Sprint roll for a total Sprint of 21" - enough to jump the carriage all the way over the moat!

Trotsky smashes face first into the Fortress wall, right where the old man told Stalin there'd be an architectural weakness. And he was right!

Trotsky only does 2 damage with his face, but that's enough to beat the wall's crit-fail roll of 1 armor. The wall, on the other hand, gets a Bonus Die and does 9 Damage to Trotsky. I was sure Trotsky would break his neck on this one, but instead he rolls two Bonuses in a row for 13 armor and comes through without a scratch.

IVasscus has no trouble staying on the carriage, thanks to keeping his Spider Acrobatix going.

The dead shadow knight decoy sitting in the driver's seat wasn't wearing a seatbelt. He launches forward and is impaled on one of the window spears.

SHADOW KNIGHT: Oh my god! Larry! Is that you? Where have you been for the last three years?

The pikeman in the window attempts to detect IVasscus, but rolls a sorry two inches on his Detection roll. IVasscus hasn't been spotted yet, thanks to the darkness of night (not pictured).

GARRISON COMMANDER DRAYKO: What's all that noise!? Did someone crash their carriage into the wall?

SHADOW KNIGHT: It's Larry, with the carriage we lost in 2009! He crashed so hard that his body decomposed into a skeleton!

DRAYKO: Because I have no forensic deduction skills, that sounds perfectly believable!DRAYKO: But wait, weren't there two Shadow Knights assigned to that carriage? We'd better see if there are any survivors! Because Lord Vladek will want to punish somebody over this fuckup, and it's not going to be me!

Drayko's squad of Elite Guards moves up to investigate, along with two squads of Shadow Knights and scorpions who happened to be nearby. Everyone in and on the wall are rubbernecking at the crashed carriage.

When Trotsky smashed through the wall, the substandard wall section fell down and smashed a bunch of red scorpions, fatally severing their femoral arteries.

A swarm of scorpions on the inner bank of the moat was disturbed by the crash and skitters forward to see if there are any dead bodies to eat.

End of Turn 1. IVasscus has crossed the moat, but if he's discovered then there are a whole lot of VladTron forces standing between him and escape. Stalin has successfully gotten the cart across the moat, but now he's stranded on the near side.

Totally scrambling over so that I can hide behind the drawbridge and climb up it - but not high enough so that if they opened it I get flattened. I'm saving my action so that I can react if/when the drawbridge gets lowered and scramble to safety.